(Newser)
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A Connecticut man was condemned to death today for a night of terror inside a suburban home in which Jennifer Hawke-Petit was strangled and her two daughters tied to their beds, doused in gasoline, and left to die in a fire. Jurors in New Haven Superior Court voted unanimously to send Steven Hayes to death row after deliberating over the span of four days. The judge will impose the sentence.

Hayes looked straight ahead and had no obvious reaction as the jury's sentence was announced. He will join nine other men on Connecticut's death row. The state has only executed one man since 1960, so Hayes will likely spend years, if not decades, in prison. His attorneys had tried to avoid the death penalty by calling the co-defendant, Joshua Komisarjevsky, the mastermind behind the 2007 crime and saying he escalated the violence. Komisarjevsky will be tried next year. Watch Hawke-Petit's husband respond to the sentence—he says there's no closure—here.

My heart goes out to the victims.This man deserved to be sentenced to death for what he did to the family. Being a parent I do understand that all parents want everything to keep their children safe all the time. In fact, my ideal safety solution for my two kids is giving them a mobile security software that enables to protect them from harm by alerting me and a group of trusted people when they are in trouble and if necessary, it will escalate the emergency to the nearest 911. For child safety, just take a look at http://Safekidzone.com/

Riffran

Nov 8, 2010 9:17 PM CST

see ya shitbag....

Non-deep-thinker

Nov 8, 2010 4:59 PM CST

With any luck, this will be one where the prison guards look the other way every time something starts happening to this human slug, so that he gets to experience fear and terror and helplessness again and again every minute for the rest of his life.